Secret Meetings

• In Event: Pioneering Research on Leaders and Elites in Foreign Policy

Abstract

During her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton held approximately 7,000 diplomatic meetings. Approximately 10% of these were publicly announced by the State Department at the time. The remainder were kept private and publicly released only after extensive FOIA litigation seeking Clinton's private schedule. Using both the private schedules released under FOIA and the contemporaneous public schedules, I build a unique dataset of meetings and use it to test theories of foreign policy secrecy. Two main findings emerge. First, public schedules seem to be designed to create an illusion of sovereign equality -- that is, the distribution of meetings by country is much more equal in the public than private schedules. The State Department is several times more likely to conceal meetings with major powers. Second, additional reasons for secrecy appear to be largely domestic, bureaucratic, and personal. Meetings involving multiple agencies are more likely to be public. Publicity also appears to reflect Clinton's personal political interests. Notably, meetings with countries closely tied to presidential swing states and states with early presidential primaries are more likely to be public.

Author

• David Lindsey, Baruch College, CUNY